3 Dangerous Mistakes That Can Destroy Your Business
The aim of this article is to make you aware of mistakes that could ruin your business, and how to fix them.
Running a successful business requires more than passion and resilience.
Granted, these two are important and will keep you going when things get tough. But, you also need to know the pitfalls to avoid to ensure your business thrives.
Having this knowledge will help:
- Improve your brand’s reputation
- Boost your sales
- Protect your business from collapsing.
So what mistakes should you look out for?
1. Not choosing a niche
When you don’t pick a niche, you spend more money on creating products and services. You have to finance the research, manufacturing, testing, modifications, distribution, and marketing processes.
Thus, by offering a wide range of products or services, you increase your chances of failing as:
- You may not be able to produce the best product due to limited financial resources.
- If you’re creating and selling different products, you are already spreading yourself too thin. So, you won’t have enough time to test each one and make the necessary adjustments to improve them.
- Your customers will not consider you an expert in any field. This is because you are doing a little bit of everything, which reduces your credibility.
- Clients are happy to pay specialists more because of their expertise. As a generalist, you command lower fees, meaning less profit.
But, when you niche down, you deal with a smaller segment of the market. They’ll trust you as an expert in your field, which allows you to charge higher fees for that expertise.
CopySmiths is an excellent example of a business that has successfully carved out a niche. The company provides blog writing services to eCommerce stores. Specializing in this area has allowed them to consistently supply their clients with high-quality content.
“Communication was excellent and most importantly the service they provide is top-notch. Their articles are well researched, written, and then even published.
I highly recommend CopySmiths to anyone looking for a professional content creation company.”
Alex S., Lucid Hills Investments
Now that you understand the risks of not having a niche, pick one and watch your business grow.
2. Not formalizing deals in writing
Failure to formalize deals in writing (whether with a potential client or vendor), creates room for misunderstandings. Also, it exposes your business to risks if the deal goes sour.
This happens because a verbal agreement, also known as a handshake deal is accompanied by:
- Lack of clarity on the terms of the agreement, deliverables, and each party’s responsibilities.
- Lack of legal proof of the agreement, which comes in handy in case of a dispute.
- Difficulty in enforcing the deal. Some agreements (such as the sale of a property) cannot be forced without a legal contract.
- Lack of confidentiality. Without a written contract, the other party can reveal details of your agreement which may not be in the best interest of your business.
In short, a written agreement is important in helping you cut risks while operating your business.
So, have a contract in place before you invest your time and money in a business deal, no matter how much you trust the other party.
3. Poor customer service
Bad customer service can negatively impact your brand’s reputation, sales, and more.
A study conducted by Forbes showed that 96% of customers are willing to abandon a business due to poor customer service.
A dissatisfied customer can ruin your business in this era of digital technology. All it takes is a post on social media, a bad review or telling others about your poor service.
Before you know it, your customers will start buying from your competitors and fewer clients translate to less profit for you.
Any customer who interacts with your business has expectations and when these aren’t met, that qualifies as bad customer service. Examples of poor customer service include:
- Keeping your customers waiting too long.
- Making your customers repeat their grievances.
- Providing customers with poor quality products or services.
- Being rude to customers.
- Losing a customer’s order and not compensating them as soon as possible.
And so much more.
It is important to ensure your customers have a pleasant experience from the moment they first interact with your business.
Additionally, do what it takes to meet their needs.
Time to Make Some Changes
A lot goes into running a successful business and thus it isn’t meant to be easy. But, it also doesn’t have to get to a point where you feel like pulling your hair out.
When you avoid or correct the mistakes mentioned in this article, you’ll be on your way to having a thriving business.
If you are looking for informative and engaging articles for your blog, check out CopySmiths.
“I’m really impressed at the quality of content that CopySmiths produces. My niche is boring, but CopySmiths is very creative and consistently comes up with unique angles to address the topic…”
Alan Marek, PartCatalog.com
We wish you all the best in your business.
